Walking the Streets
by vashluver1
Summary: Just a fluffy little one-shot. Meryl walks home late at night but who will be there to greet her? Vash is gone. Millie is gone. Who's going to save Meryl? Read and find out.


Disclaimer – I don't own Trigun.  
  
Author's Note – This is only my second Trigun fiction so go easy on me. This is in Meryl's point of view so don't get confused.  
  
'Why do I even bother? He'll never like me back. Never. I might as well kill myself.'  
  
"To tell you the truth, I disapprove of suicide more than anything!"  
  
I heard his words in my head. 'I won't kill myself if that's what will make you happy, Vash.' He still hadn't come back yet. It had been 3 months now since he left to fight his brother, Knives. 'What kind of man causes his own brother so much pain? What kind of man his brother's arm off? What kind of man kills the only mother figure Vash ever had? How could anyone be so cruel?' I asked these questions to myself as I walked home from the night shift of my job. I worked at the town bar as a waitress. The money wasn't very good but I survived on my own.  
  
Millie had gone to visit her family so I was all alone. 'Just be happy that you're still alive!' I thought to myself. I honestly didn't care if I died at that moment. The only thing that kept me going was the look on Millie's face if she ever heard that I died. She had already lost somebody very important to her. 'Wolfwood. Why did you have to die? You caused Millie so much grief.'  
  
Just then, I heard a sound in an ally. 'Great! What a day to leave my cape at home!' I was still in my waitress uniform. Something was moving in the dark. 'Or is it somebody?' I started walking faster. I walked past the ally but the sound followed me. I heard footsteps behind me. I stopped. They stopped. 'Who could be following me this late at night?' I felt myself being pulled into another ally. 'What the hell?'  
  
"Well, hello there, beautiful," a man slurred. "Fancy seeing you here. What are you doing out so late?"  
  
"That is none of your business," I said trying to get away. "I'm tired."  
  
"You could come to my hotel room and sleep there. Come on, sugar."  
  
"I'm hungry!"  
  
"I'm hungry, too. But not for food," he breathed on my neck and began to kiss it.  
  
'Disgusting' "I'm cold!"  
  
"I could warm you up," he said seductively.  
  
"Let go of me! Now!"  
  
"Maybe I don't wanna," he sounded really drunk. I could smell his breath. It reeked of alcohol. He started unbuttoning my blouse. I tried as hard as I could to push him away but he wouldn't budge.  
  
'You'd think all that alcohol in his system would have weakened him somehow." He was really big. He was easily three times my size.  
  
"Let go of me, now!!!!!!!" I screamed.  
  
"Maybe we should speed things up a bit," he suggested in that stupid wannabe seductive voice. He ripped off my shirt and skirt. So I was just standing there in my underwear and bra. I tried to cover my self up and run away before he could do anything. He grabbed me and slammed me against the wall. "You're not going anywhere, honey," he growled.  
  
"Yes! I am!" I gritted my teeth.  
  
"Look, sweet cheeks. All I want is just a little taste of you. I'll go in and out that's all," he said sweetly.  
  
"Just shut up and let me go!" He used one hand to hold my wrists to the wall and began to undo my bra. I heard footsteps coming into a hallway. 'Oh joy. Is this going to be a two man job?' I thought miserably. I heard the cock of a gun.  
  
"Get your filthy hands off her," I heard a wonderfully familiar voice say.  
  
"Wait your turn, brother." The stupid man was still working on my bra. His grip on my wrists hadn't lessened.  
  
"I said, GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF HER, NOW!!!" I looked at the familiar sounding man. It was too dark to tell who it was but he threw something to me and I caught it. "Here. Put this on," he said softly. 'Who is this man?'  
  
"Look. I don't wanna make any trouble here. Let me just get my fun with her and then she's yours!" The drunken fool tried to reason. The mysterious man just seemed to get a lot angrier.  
  
"There is no way in hell I'm going to let you get your "fun" with her!"  
  
"So, is she your girl?" the drunk man asked.  
  
The other man didn't say anything.  
  
The thing that the familiar man tossed to me was a coat. Since I couldn't see it, I had to feel it to find out what it was. The coat seemed familiar. I put it on. It was warm and smelled like gun oil and dust. It was long so I felt really safe and secure in it. 'Now all I have to do is walk away.' I tried that but my seducer just held on tighter. 'Damn.'  
  
"I don't want to kill you," the familiar man said.  
  
'He sounds so much like him! But why would he come now?'  
  
Before I could say anything, the man pulled me to him and in my ear he whispered, "Shh, it's ok. I won't let him do anything to you."  
  
"Thank you," I whispered.  
  
"Don't mention it," he replied. His gun was pointed at the other man's face. "I would leave now before I pull this trigger," he said to the other man in a low voice.  
  
My seducer put his hands up in surrender and slowly walked backward and tripped over a garbage can. My savior and I both started laughing. He put his arm around me and led me out of the ally. There was a street lamp right by it and I noticed the coat was red. A wave of recognition swept over me. 'Vash!' I slowly turned around with anticipation. There he was! In the flesh! I hugged him really tight. "Oh, Vash!" He hugged me back. "What took you so long? Did you just get back? Are you hurt? What happened? Where is Knives? Is this really you?"  
  
He tilted my chin up. "You're cold. Let's get you inside. Now where do you live?" I took him to my house and unlocked the door. He led me to the couch. "Ok. Much better. Before I answer any of your questions, I have something to ask you."  
  
'He's going to ask me where Millie is. I know it.' "Millie is-"  
  
"I wasn't going to ask you that."  
  
"Oh. Ok."  
  
"What is a girl like you doing out so late? It's hardly the right weather for a midnight walk."  
  
'He was concerned about me!' "I work the night shift at a bar as a waitress," I answered.  
  
"Why didn't you bring any protection?" he asked.  
  
"I don't really expect to be raped every night, you know!"  
  
"That wasn't the kind of protection I was talking about. I meant a gun or something."  
  
"I accidentally left my guns here," I said shamefully. "I forgot to bring them, tonight."  
  
"You were really lucky I came back tonight," he said softly in my ear.  
  
"Yeah. I guess I was. When are you going to answer me questions?"  
  
"Fine. I was traveling. I took Knives to the fallen Seeds ship and had him frozen. He wont be causing any more trouble. Yes, I just arrived. I just got a couple gunshot wounds. That's all. And yes. It is I! Your handsome savior, Vash the Stampede!" He did some of his weird wannabe macho moves.  
  
"Impressive," I said to make him shut up.  
  
"Really?"  
  
'Didn't work.' "Sarcasm is a foreign language to you, isn't it?"  
  
"Yup!"  
  
"Oh my God. You are hopeless."  
  
"Where is the big girl?" I knew that was going to come up.  
  
"She left to go visit her family. She'll be back in a week or so."  
  
"Oh. Good! We have a whole week to ourselves!" he said happily.  
  
"Oh, joy," I said smiling.  
  
"You know, you look really cute in my coat."  
  
"Did you just say I look... cute?" I said unbelieving. I could almost hear him thinking 'Great! I've done it now. I went and made her mad. She's going to hit me now. I don't need another bruise.'  
  
"Uh... yeah. It's so big on you. You look so tiny!" he started laughing so I just joined in. So here we were. A man and woman who were just friends laughing their heads off on a couch. No one was home. We were alone. You would expect something to happen. But here we were laughing at how I looked in his coat. No exactly the romantic encounter I always dreamed about with him but close enough. Hopefully, we would soon be all over each other kissing and holding each other. 'Dream on, Meryl!'  
  
He noticed that I was staring at him and stopped laughing. "Is anything wrong, Meryl?" I just widened my eyes.  
  
"You just... said my name. My... real name."  
  
"Oh... uh... sorry. That's just how I think of you... I call you... Meryl... in my head..." he said nervously.  
  
"Oh! It's no problem! I always hated it when you called me "that insurance girl" or "small girl". Sometimes I wondered if you even knew my name."  
  
"Of course I know your name! You've said it enough." I smiled remembering how I always introduced myself.  
  
'I am Meryl Stryfe of the Bernardelli Insurance Society.' It was always the same. "Yeah. I remember."  
  
"I just never said it. I tried to deny that I lo- I'll just shut up now," he said with a nervous grin on his face.  
  
"What, Vash? What were you going to say?" I hoped it was what I thought it was. 'Oh well. It's worth a try.' "Were you about to say that you love me?"  
  
"I... uh... yes," he said sighing. "I should just go now. This will ruin our friendship and I don't want you to pity me and act like you love me when you d-"  
  
"Do. When I do love you," I interrupted him.  
  
"Real-?"I kissed him. He kissed me back.  
  
'I must be dreaming. Am I actually kissing Vash the Stampede? Is he actually kissing me back? Things like this don't every happen to girls like me. He's an outlaw! I'm an insurance representative! He's a sweet, handsome, man who is as wise as he is old. I'm just a bitchy, temperamental, rude, ug-'  
  
Vash pulled back and put a finger to my lips. "Don't even say it, Meryl," he whispered sternly. "You're the most beautiful woman I have ever met."  
  
"But how did you-"  
  
"Shh. We don't need to talk about this now." He leaned in for another kiss, which I gratefully accepted.  
  
"I love you, Vash."  
  
"I love you, too, Meryl"  
  
Aw! Wasn't that cute? Meryl almost gets raped and Vash saves her. Meryl's got the whole "damsel in distress" thing all wrapped up. Was this little one-shot good enough or am I a lost cause? Please read and review! 


End file.
